NY 29: Massa Responds to Kuhl's Health Care Platform ROCHESTER, NY (WXXI) - Democratic Congressional candidate Eric Massa is firing back at Republican congressman Randy Kuhl's health care plan.

Kuhl, who represents the 29th congressional district, released his plan Tuesday. It focuses on lowering health care costs, preventing disease and using tax credits to offer consumers more choice when it comes to buying health insurance. It focuses on portability - letting consumers take their insurance from job to job - and individual savings for health care bills.

But Massa says Kuhl's plan relies on "old tired solutions." Instead, he's promising, if elected, to support single payer health care.

"I have been on the record for this for three years. And 51 percent of all physicians who are members of the American Medical Association this year agree with us. We need to get away from for-profit HMOs. They are literally killing America."

The crux of Massa's health care plan is his support of H.R. 676. That's a congressional bill that proposes to expand Medicare, and use the program to cover all Americans in a national health insurance program. Massa says it would be paid for by reducing overhead, through a centralized administration of health care.

The Democrat's platform also calls for providing health care to minorities and the poor in a "humane and equitable way," and removing insurance company and pharmaceutical lobbyists from the process of crafting health care policy.

Both Kuhl and Massa want to leverage information technology - specifically electronic record keeping - to make delivering health care easier and cheaper. The candidates also agree that more prevention and early detection programs could reduce health care costs.
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